The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventor, to the extent the work is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Wireless discovery refers to the process by which Wi-Fi connected mobile devices such as cell phones, laptops, tablets and the like (also known as “stations”) seek out other wireless stations carrying some useful service or application. An example may be a smartphone seeking a router offering internet connection capability, a laptop seeking a Wi-Fi enabled color printer (or print server), or a tablet seeking other stations running a particular social media application. In the case of the latter, it may also be advantageous to not only find other devices running the application, but to categorize each device by group, for example, according to commonly shared social media peers.
The current wireless discovery infrastructure is highly inefficient, relying on individual stations establishing station-to-station connections prior to the service/application discovery process, often based on little more than a service set identifier (SSID). Only after the connections have been negotiated can the individual stations perform application-level service discovery, which may consist of exchanging lengthy message strings (e.g., via UPnP or Bonjour), which determine the basic inter-operability requirements for a given service or application. An analogy to this process could be making a reservation at a restaurant, waiting to be seated, and ordering a drink before finding out which items are listed on the menu.